


Kenma's One Week Plan

by poppyfields



Series: Kenma's Confession [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Confessions, Crushes, Fluff, High School, Jealousy, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Second Year Hinata Shouyou, Third Year Kozume Kenma, Tokyo Training Camp Arc (Haikyuu), Training Camp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppyfields/pseuds/poppyfields
Summary: Last year's training camp did not go according to plan, and Kenma blamed Kuroo.This year would be different, though. This year Kuroo was gone. This year Kenma was the captain.This year Kenma would make Shoyo fall in love with him.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kozume Kenma
Series: Kenma's Confession [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2187837
Comments: 11
Kudos: 119





	Kenma's One Week Plan

Last training camp didn’t go well. I mean, it went well in the sense that they played volleyball and got better and whatever else Kenma was supposed to care about, but it did not go well in the sense that when Hinata Shoyo boarded the bus out of Tokyo, he was not desperately in love with Kenma. 

Kenma didn’t blame Shoyo, of course, it was his own fault, or, more accurately it was Kuroo’s fault. He’d realised Kenma’s crush about as quickly as Kenma did himself, the first day they met Shoyo, so Kuroo spent the entire training camp watching, smirking, raising his eyebrows, more or less annoying Kenma to the point that he couldn’t even stand within a metre of Shoyo without blushing.

That wouldn’t happen this time, though. This time, Kuroo wouldn’t be there to bully him, he’d be stuck in his stupid dorm studying for finals. This time, Kenma was the captain of Nekoma, and this time he had a plan.

It was a concrete, well thought out plan, with strict rules and achievable goals, and if it worked, it ended in Shoyo going home as his boyfriend. And if Kenma was even half the strategic genius his team seemed to think he was, it was going to work.

* * *

The first day of the training camp, the day Shoyo was set to arrive, Kenma sat on the curb of the school parking lot, pulling leaves apart to distract his hands as he waited. He’d tried playing video games, but he’d been so distracted he died just making his way to a quest location, so he put his PSP away before he ended up ruining his stats.

His hand reached for his phone the second it buzzed, and he read the text Shoyo sent him.

**I think I see your school!**

Kenma raised his head and his eyes immediately found the white bus, just a little over a block away. He immediately pushed himself up from the curb, his heartbeat picking up much faster than he would like.

When the bus pulled in he took a deep breath, conscious that the wide smile on his face was uncharacteristic of himself, and hoping no one would comment on it.

“Kenma-kun!” 

Shoyo’s feet hit the pavement of the parking lot a total of three times before his arms were wrapped tightly around Kenma. The setter normally didn’t do hugs, but Shoyo was the exception. Shoyo was the exception to a lot of things. 

He felt his cheeks grow a little red as he raised his arms to hold Shoyo’s back in return. He was warm and comfortable and at least a couple centimetres taller than the last time Kenma had seen him. He would be taller than Kenma soon. 

He must have taken a nap on the bus because his sweatshirt smelled like sleep, and it was folded in weird ways at the back. 

“How was the bus ride?” Kenma asked as he pulled away, diverting his eyes in an effort to cool his blush, not that he was ever big into eye contact.

“Eh,” Shoyo stretched a hand behind him to scratch his neck in a bashful gesture that matched his lopsided smile, “I slept through most of it.”

Kenma laughed a little. He was right. 

They stood in silence for a second, Kenma not sure what to say and a little scared that if he opened his mouth he might confess right that second and ruin the entire plan. It was hard not to though. It was hard to think of anything other than _“I love you, Hinata Shoyo”_ with him standing right there in front of him.

“Are we going to play a game today?” Shoyo asked after another second passed, “I’m excited to play against you, I’ve gotten way better, even since our last practice match. Right, Kageyama?”

His eyes turned to his teammate who had just emerged from the bus behind him. Kenma silently cursed the other setter for drawing Shoyo’s gaze away from him. He didn’t know if Tobio did it on purpose, but he always seemed to attract Shoyo’s eyes.

“He’s still shit at serving,” Kageyama frowned, before bowing slightly at Kenma, “Nice to see you senpai.”

Kenma couldn’t even try to keep his expression kind, but he bowed in response, “Kageyama.”

“I’m not shit at serving!” Hinata objected, attention still fully directed at Kageyama, “I’m getting way better! Just because you learned from Oikawa and still won’t teach me.”

“I tried teaching you, you just suck.”

“You didn’t try at all, you hit one serve and you said, ‘do it like that’.”

“Yeah, that’s called teaching.”

At some point in their argument Kageyama had placed his hand on Shoyo’s head and it all but disappeared in his giant mess of orange hair. Kenma stood in front of the two of them, aware that they had completely forgotten his existence. Maybe he should just bully Shoyo. Maybe that would make him fall in love with him.

He shook the idea from his head. No. He had a plan. He just had to stick to the plan. He shouldn’t let Kageyama distract him.

“Well, I haven’t improved at all,” Kenma announced, interrupting their fight. He didn’t normally interrupt people, but again, Shoyo was the exception. “So I’m sure you’ll be better than me Shoyo.”

The redhead turned to face him, Kageyama’s hand twisting with him on his head.

“What?” Shoyo grabbed Kenma’s arms and shook him, the movement causing Kageyama to drop his hand, “No way, you’re way smarter than me Kenma, and you’re captain now! I’m sure you’ve gotten way better and you didn’t even notice!”

Kenma smiled, more at the fact that Shoyo was looking at him than the complement. He felt like smiling smugly at Kageyama, even though he was pretty sure their competition only existed in his mind. Instead, he kept his gaze on Shoyo, wishing he knew how to touch him casually, the way Kageyama could. He wasn’t good with touches, though.

The rest of the day Shoyo continued to come up to Kenma, talk to him excitedly about the nice receive he made, or the point he scored. 

He asked Kenma to explain the game he was playing every time he brought out his PSP, and he told him the few stories he had about himself playing video games. He was pretty bad at them, but Kenma always let him try anyways, even if it meant he lost some progress. 

It was so cute to watch him play, watch him get killed by the first enemy and curse as if he had any chance of actually beating the level. It was especially cute when he gave up, choosing to watch over Kenma’s shoulder instead, and he made sounds of admiration when Kenma did anything.

At the end of the day, when they found themselves in the empty classrooms where they were meant to sleep, Kenma realised Nekoma and Karasuno were meant to be in different rooms. That wasn’t going to work. The plan wasn’t going to work.

Kenma was standing in front of the rolled out futon he had pretty much been left with after the rest of his team chose theirs. He was still holding his bag, reluctant to put it down, as if he could just wait long enough and something would change, he would be offered a bed right next to Hinata’s.

“Kenma?” The voice came from the door, drawing his eye and a couple of his teammates’ too.

Shoyo was standing in the door, with his bag, a blanket hanging over his head. Kenma’s heart pounded a little harder than usual.

“I asked Ennoshita, and Ukai, and they said I could change rooms if I wanted,” he started to explain, his voice so fast it was hard to follow, “And I see those guys all the time, but I haven’t seen you in forever, and so I thought maybe I could sleep in here. Like maybe if someone wanted to trade with me?”

His eyes scanned the room hopefully, and Kenma’s eyes followed his, trying to silently communicate to his teammates that unless they wanted to warm the bench for the rest of the season, someone better _trade beds with Hinata_.

Finally Yamamoto stepped forward, “Yeah, I’ll switch.”  
Kenma looked over at him with the closest thing to a smile he’d directed at him in months. Yamamoto was going to get some _nice_ tosses tomorrow.

Shoyo was all smiles as he burst through the door and claimed his bed right next to Kenma’s, and Kenma couldn’t help but think there was someone looking out for him, because that was the kind of perfect you couldn’t pay for.

* * *

When Kenma woke up the second day, his eyes blinked open to the brightness of two suns, the one flitting through the old blinds in the windows, and the one grinning over at him from the next bed, quietly hissing his name.

He pressed a hand over his face, something between a groan and a yawn. It was too much, too early in the morning. Shoyo laughed, and Kenma half-buried his face in his blanket to hide the smile he couldn't suppress after hearing that.

“What time is it?” he grumbled.

“Five thirty…” Shoyo checked his phone, “two.”

Kenma groaned, twisting his body deeper into his pillow, “We don’t have to get up until seven, Shoyo.”

“I know, I know,” Shoyo’s whisper was slowly growing louder, though Kenma was pretty sure he wasn’t doing it on purpose, “but I was excited, I couldn’t sleep,” cute, Kenma thought, smiling into his pillow, “Maybe you could toss me a couple of balls?”

Kenma was silent for a moment. Thinking of how many times he’d told Kuroo no to this exact question. How easy it was to do. How easy it would be to fall back to sleep, how he would get another hour and a half if he did.

“Sure,” he mumbled, despite himself, before pushing off the bed.

In hindsight, it was probably a good thing he got up. The gym was still locked when they first got down, so the two of them just practiced passing in the field. 

Shoyo’s hair caught the early morning light, which made it shine like strands of gold. Shoyo’s laugh rolled through the empty field, shaking the beads of dew of the grass. 

When Nekomata finally woke up, around 6 and opened the gym, Kenma and Shoyo were the first ones in, and when Kageyama finally arrived around 6:30, Shoyo barely even turned his head.

It was a good thing he let Shoyo wake him up that morning.

The goal for day two, as outlined in the plan, was to eat lunch alone with Shoyo. He had no illusion that it was going to be easy. Shoyo was a popular guy, and unlike Kenma he actually _liked_ the majority of the people that liked him. It wouldn’t be easy to drag him away from his friends, but Kenma had the home field advantage. 

He knew every spot on campus, including a very nice bench, around the east side of the school, where he sometimes ate his lunch when the weather was nice. 

He would invite Shoyo to eat with him there, they would sneak off alone, and they would spend the lunch hour talking, which was hard for them to do around a million people who knew how to talk, knew how to be loud, knew how to find their place in a conversation way better than Kenma did.

“That sounds great, Kenma!” Shoyo bubbled, after he suggested the idea.  
Kenma couldn’t help but feel a little proud. The plan was working perfectly.  
“Should we invite Lev?”

Kenma just stared at him blankly. No. No they shouldn’t invite Lev. That was absolutely the last thing Kenma wanted to do. Except maybe invite Kegeyama.

“Or someone from my team?”

Kenma didn’t know what to say. Shoyo’s smile was so bright, and he agreed so readily to come eat lunch in Kenma’s favourite spot, he had almost thought the plan would go off without a hitch. That was a stupid thing to think.

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Kenma muttered, unable to muster a real excuse with Shoyo smiling at him like that, “I kinda thought you and me could go alone.”

Shoyo looked at him with a little sad look.  
“Oh come on, I’m sure they’ll love it.”

It wasn’t the first time someone confused Kenma’s general dislike of people with insecurity. It wasn’t the first time Shoyo confused Kenma’s general dislike of people with insecurity. 

It would be too rude though, to just say “no, Shoyo, I hate your friends”, and it would take far more courage than Kenma had in his body to say “no, Shoyo, I want to be alone with you”. 

Instead he just nodded. If his plan fell apart, his plan fell apart. At least he would get to see Shoyo happy.

There were five of them when they finally arrived at the supposedly private bench Kenma had planned to show just Shoyo. Luckily Kageyama wasn’t one of the five, Kenma wouldn’t be able to stand watching him and Shoyo argue all lunch over his favourite spot in the school. 

Instead, though, Shoyo had decided to invite Tanaka and Nishinoya, the two most annoying people on his team. He also invited Lev, of course, the most annoying person on Kenma’s team. 

Kenma didn’t mind as much as he thought he would though. They all knew how to talk to Shoyo, they knew how to make him laugh. Kenma was still figuring some of that out. 

He got to spend the lunch mostly silent, watching Shoyo laugh and flail his arms around as he told stories Kenma had never heard before. 

The best part was, whenever Kenma was starting to think he wasn’t needed there, whenever he was starting to think Shoyo forgot about him, he would turn his bright smile right towards him and make him feel like the most important person in the world. 

Shoyo was good at that. Making Kenma feel big. Making Kenma feel useful, or interesting, or good. It was something in his smile. Something like a drug, something addictive. Kenma really hoped he liked him back, so he would be able to kiss him when he smiled like that.

He would just have to find another time to be alone with Shoyo.

* * *

The third day was similar to the second. Shoyo let them sleep in a little later, and they had lunch in the cafeteria, with everyone else, but other than that it wasn’t very different. The third night, though, there was a plan.

This plan, a sub-plan to the overarching _make Shoyo fall in love_ plan, had originated about a month earlier. Shoyo had called Kenma one night, to tell him about... something. Something Kenma couldn’t remember. When he picked up the phone he had just finished smoking one of the fattest bowls he’d ever packed.

It took Shoyo a minute to realize Kenma wasn’t fully there, only because he talked nonstop for the first minute of the call. The first time Kenma finished a sentence Shoyo immediately laughed.

“Are you high?”

At first Kenma was nervous, but when he cautiously admitted he was, Shoyo only got more excited. Apparently he’d tried it with Tanaka and Nishinoya, and apparently he enjoyed it. Apparently he wanted to try smoking with Kenma.

Kenma normally liked to be alone when he was high, people stressed him out, but again, Shoyo was the exception to so many things, he thought he would probably be the exception to this, too.

So that was the plan for the third night, and Kenma had a joint at the bottom of his bag for that exact reason.

That was why Shoyo sidled up to him at dinner, way closer than he normally would, probably trying to be discreet.  
“So, we’re doing it tonight, right?” He asked, a wide, mischievous smile on his face.

Kenma felt his cheeks go a little hot. Partly from how close Shoyo was, partly from the look they were getting from Yamamoto, partly from how cute Shoyo’s mischievous smile was, especially when this really wasn’t that big of a deal.

He nodded in response to the question, looking down at his food.

“I’m excited,” Shoyo told him, “I’ve only done it twice, but I don’t think it really worked the first time. Tanaka said it’s ‘cuz I did it wrong, but I did it the same way both times… I think.”

Kenma hummed, still conscious of how close Shoyo was to him, “Yeah, that happens to a lot of people.”

“Should we invite Tanaka and Nishinoya? I think they brought some too.”

Kenma looked over at him, panic running rampant through his mind. God, he really didn’t want Tanaka and Nishinoya there. The lunch had been fine, not great, but fine, but Kenma would not be able to deal with those two if he was high. They would stress him out so much. He tightened his fists, hoping Shoyo wouldn’t hate him for what he was about to say.

“Um, could we not?” did it sound mean? Kenma wasn’t good at knowing what sounded mean, he definitely wasn’t good at controlling whether he did or not, “I just, I get kind of anxious, and they-”

Shoyo’s eyes were now as wide as dinner plates, “Of course! Oh my god, I’m sorry Kenma, I wasn’t even thinking.”

“Oh no it’s-”

“No, I really am sorry,” Shoyo insisted, “You told me you get anxious around people you don’t know too well and you told me you didn’t want to do anything crazy and Tanaka and Nishinoya only do crazy things. I don’t even know why I suggested it. I want it to just be you and me, too. I want to do it with you.”

Kenma’s heart pounded. How was Shoyo so okay with that? How was Shoyo so considerate? How was he so absolutely perfect? And how could he be so perfect and still say he wanted to spend time with just him? 

Again Kenma hoped Shoyo liked him back. Now would be another moment when it would be so nice to be able to kiss him. 

The third night, when they actually snuck out, went well. A couple boys noticed them leave but Shoyo just put a finger over his mouth and stage whispered, "we're sneaking out." Somehow that actually worked, no one asked any more questions.

Shoyo definitely wasn't lying when he said he'd only smoked twice, because he coughed for at least thirty seconds between each little puff. 

He didn't end up smoking a lot, mostly because he was too busy coughing, and Kenma finished most of the joint himself. That was probably a good thing though, Shoyo's tolerance matched his technique, so even after the few hits he'd taken he was just as high as Kenma.

"We're in Tokyo!" He exclaimed as they left the school grounds for their little walk.

Kenma laughed, watching Shoyo drop his head back and spin in circles to look at the, truly not that tall buildings around them as if they were skyscrapers.

"Hello Tokyo!" He called into the sky.

"Shut up," Kenma giggled, cupping a hand over Shoyo's mouth. He could feel Shoyo's breath as he laughed under his hand.

His heart pounded.

They spent the next hour or two wandering the neighborhood, talking about nearly everything. Their childhoods, their families, their hopes, their dreams, their insecurities. It was easy to talk with Shoyo about these things. Easier than with anyone else. He was so open it almost felt natural for Kenma to be too. 

Every once in a while Shoyo stopped in his tracks to point out something he thought was unique to Tokyo. Normally they weren't anything special, construction barriers with different colours than the ones in Sendai, vending machines with drinks Shoyo had never seen, sometimes just a store, or a building, or a cat.

"They have cats in Miyagi, Shoyo," Kenma smiled.

"Well, sure, but those are country cats," he argued, "this is a city cat."

Kenma laughed, "what about in Sendai, aren't those city cats?"

Shoyo paused, trying hard to think, but he never came up with a proper response, he just burst into laughter. Kenma pressed his lips together, trying to keep his smile from growing even bigger. It didn't work, he ended up laughing anyway. Shoyo was just so funny, and so fucking cute.

Eventually Shoyo started yawning, and Kenma couldn’t pretend he wasn’t tired too, so they made their way back towards the school. When they got there though, Shoyo grabbed Kenma’s hand, holding him back. Kenma turned to him, a little too stoned to notice the touch at first, but when he saw their hands clasped together his heart sped up like the music in a video game right before a boss battle.

“Um, could we not go back in right now?” Shoyo mumbled. Whatever his expression was Kenma didn’t see it, his eyes were still focused on their joined hands.

He nodded slowly, though his brain hadn’t quite had time to process the question yet. When it finally did, he looked up at Shoyo suddenly.

“Yes!”

Shoyo’s expression had been sort of bashful, but when he heard this a smile started to take shape on his lips. Kenma’s expression mirrored Shoyo’s until they were just standing there, silently, smiling, holding hands.

To Kenma at least, the world seemed to fall apart around them. Shoyo was there, looking at him, smiling at him, holding his hand and he couldn’t think of anything in the world more important than that.

Shoyo was the first to break eye contact, turning his head away.  
After a long second of silence he muttered, “what were we talking about again?”

Kenma laughed, not quite as embarrassed as he might have normally been. Shoyo laughed with him. It was funny, to be as giddy and carefree as the two of them were. All their friends, their hopes, their responsibilities, all the thoughts that were so important to them normally had been deemed unimportant by their young, high, sleep-deprived, and, at least in Kenma’s case, lovesick brains, compared to this one moment.

Kenma leaned into his laugh, his body swaying closer to Shoyo. The little ginger noticed this, clasping a hand, the one that wasn’t already in Kenma’s hand, on Kenma’s arm and pulling him toward himself, so the two of them could lean against each other as they laughed. 

Although Shoyo had hugged Kenma countless times since the first day they met, this was the first time Kenma felt himself really lean into him. Really push for something more, even if it was just a tighter hug.

He wished he could murmur it into Shoyo’s neck as he nestled into it: “I love you.”  
He wished he never had to let go.

Shoyo continued laughing even as Kenma stopped, getting a little too distracted by his sudden closeness with his crush. His laugh was wonderful, like a pretty little song. Kenma loved hearing it, loved hearing it this close. 

He tilted his head a little lower towards Shoyo’s neck, taking a second to consider what would happen if he started to kiss him there. Would he freak out and push Kenma away? Would he keep laughing? Would he lean into it?

Kenma didn’t kiss him, but there was shockingly little keeping him from doing it. If he was just one bit less shy, less awkward, if he had just the tiniest bit more courage, his curiosity, his excitement, his, if we’re being honest, outright lust, would have been more than enough to make him do it. 

But he didn’t. He pulled back, but when Shoyo’s face was finally in his field of vision, the urge to kiss him just got a lot stronger. Sadly his cowardice grew just as quickly, his heart starting to pound the second Shoyo looked in his eye again. Neither of them were laughing now.

“How about we just look at the stars for a bit?” Shoyo broke the silence.

Suddenly Kenma remembered what they had been talking about all that time ago, Shoyo wasn’t ready to go in yet.

“Oh,” he sort of announced, “Oh, yeah, of course.”

Kenma’s heart never really stopped pounding, not in the short walk to the grass, not in the minutes they spent staring up at the starless Tokyo sky, with Hinata pointing out a satellite or airplane every once in a while and asking Kenma if it was a shooting star, not in their hushed walk back through the halls of the school to the room with the futons where they were all meant to be sleeping, and not in the twenty minutes it took him to fall asleep, staring at the back of Hinata’s head. 

God, he was so in love. He was so, so, fucking in love.

* * *

After that, the week started to pass way faster than Kenma had expected. The days blurred into a mess of volleyballs, video games, punishment drills, and Shoyo’s voice. Before he knew it it was the second last day. 

The second last day, according to the plan, was the day when Kenma would confess. He chose the second last day because, once Shoyo went home, there was no guarantee as to when they would see each other again. If Kenma confessed on the second last day, and if Shoyo said yes, they could at least have one day together before then.

If Shoyo said no…

Originally the second last day seemed really far away. It seemed like Kenma would have more than enough time to plan, to prepare himself, to get closer to Shoyo. Now, suddenly the day had come. 

It wasn’t like Kenma _hadn’t_ planned, it wasn’t like he _wasn’t_ prepared, it wasn’t like he felt particularly _distant_ from Shoyo, but he just… He just didn’t feel ready to confess. He didn’t feel ready to get rejected.

Luckily he had a contingency plan. If he didn’t feel ready to confess by the second last day, he had a plan B to make sure he was ready on the last day. To make sure he confessed before Shoyo left.

Kenma would avoid plan B if he could, though. He would do anything in his power to avoid it. Plan B involved Lev and honestly, Kenma had hoped it would mostly just serve as motivation for him to confess. 

Plan B was use Lev as a kind of spy. Kenma would have preferred someone else, anyone else, but honestly, Lev was the only guy on his team that was particularly close to Shoyo, the only one who might know whether he liked boys. Whether he liked Kenma.

Kenma’s eyes were boring a hole into the back of Lev’s stupid, Q-Tip shaped head as he sat on the bench, watching the giant second year talk to their libero. He really didn’t want to do this, but it was this or confessing to Shoyo, and he _really_ didn’t want to confess.

“Oi, Lev,” Kenma called, pushing himself grumpily off the bench.

Lev whipped his head around at the sound of his own name, like a dog.  
“Kenma-san?”

Kenma nodded his head, trying to get his underclassman to follow him as he walked to the main doors of the gym, his water bottle was in his hand, enough of an implication that he was going to fill it. Lev was happy to come after him, catching up to him in three of his massive strides. 

“What’s up?” Lev asked, in his usual cheery tone, and Kenma resented the fact that there really was something up and he couldn’t respond to the question with his usual, “fuck off, Lev.”

“Um, you and Shoyo are friends, right?”

“Yeah,” Lev said hesitantly, his face a little confused, “But I mean, you’re friends with him, too, senpai.”

Kenma glared over at him out of the side of his eyes. He really was insufferable to talk to.

“Yeah, no shit.”

“But then…”

“I just, there’s some stuff we don’t really talk about,” Kenma interrupted him, his desire to end this conversation as quickly as possible overwhelming his embarrassment at talking about this, “I was wondering if you knew, like, if he’s dating anyone or anything.”

Kenma kept his eyes glued to the floor in front of him as he waited for a response. That was more than enough to let Lev know what his feelings were for Shoyo, right? That was really all he had to say, wasn’t it?

“What?” Lev sort of chuckled, “Why do you want to know that?”

Kenma stopped walking, turning his head to Lev’s to see that he was serious. He was going to kill him. Oh my god he was going to kill him. Was he really that dense? Did he really need Kenma to embarrass himself more?

“You know what?” Kenma raised his hand in surrender, “Nevermind, I’m good.”

Maybe he would just confess. Even Shoyo’s rejection probably wouldn’t be as painful as this. At least in that scenario he got to look at Shoyo’s pretty face as he embarrassed himself, instead of being stuck looking at Haiba Lev.

“What?” Lev called after him as Kenma turned to walk back to the bench, “What’s going on?” He took a step after him, “Why do you want to know if Hinata-”

His question was cut off by a sharp look from Kenma, before the blond started marching back towards him, pulling him through the gym doors and out of sight of the rest of the students.

“What are you doing?” Kenma hissed when they got outside, “The whole fucking gym could probably hear you!”

“Wha- I wasn’t that loud,” Lev protested, “And why-”

This time he was not interrupted by Kenma, but by his own revelation. He slowly moved to meet Kenma’s eyes, his own wide and full of something that looked a little like fear. Kenma lowered his eyebrows, Lev’s eyes stretched a little wider. Okay, it was definitely fear.

“You,” he gaped, “You like Hinata?”

Kenma closed his eyes, bowing his head forward and massaging his temples to try and ease the headache that had been growing since this conversation had started. He took a deep breath to calm himself.

“Just, do you know if he likes someone?” he mumbled, the damage had already been done, he might as well get the information he needed, “or even if he likes guys or whatever.”

He didn’t hear a response, so he raised his head to see Lev still staring at him, shocked. 

“Uh, he does,” Lev finally said when he shook himself from his trance, “He likes guys, not that he likes someone,” he specified, “I don’t know if he likes someone.”

The anger in Kenma’s expression washed away for a second, which almost never happened when he talked to Lev. Shoyo likes guys. He likes guys. Kenma was a guy. That meant, or it could mean, that maybe, Shoyo could possibly like him. Lev had actually been useful. Lev.

“How- how did you know that?” Kenma asked, snapping back to reality and adjusting his face back to its normal _talking to Haiba Lev_ expression.

“Oh,” Lev snaked a hand up to touch the back of his neck, a gesture of embarrassment that was common for him, “We’ve talked about it. He, he might have said something once around when we first met… about,” he looked up Kenma, the look on his face similar to the one he wore when he messed up a spike. Guilt, “someone.”

“Who?” Kenma asked immediately, even though he already knew he wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Um…” Lev stalled.

“Who?” Kenma asked again, a little more forcefully.

Lev looked at the door to the gym, as if scared someone was going to come out, “Um, it might have been, um, Kageyama.”

He was right to be as nervous as he was to tell Kenma, because the setter’s eyes lit up like a lion in a hunt. He was scary when he was mad, Lev knew that better than anyone, and nothing would make him mad like losing to Kageyama. Though, losing in general was not something Kenma did well with.

“He doesn’t like him,” Lev insisted, cowering a little from Kenma’s glare, “He said he doesn’t, like, have feelings for him he just,” his expression looked guilty, “he just said something stupid about, like, his abs or somehthing.”

Kenma looked, almost through Lev, as if his outrage was so much he left this dimension.

“But, but you have abs too senpai,” Lev continued, voice still panicked, “better abs, honestly, and Hinata always talks about how much he hates Kageyama, so you shouldn’t worry about him! Really!”

Kenma looked at Lev again, face still pissed off. Nothing could make the image of Shoyo swooning over Kageyama’s abs anything less than stomach-turning to Kenma, but Lev was making some fair arguments. 

He still liked guys. That was good news. And if Lev said he didn’t have a crush on Kageyama that was a good thing. This was all useful, even if some of it Kenma really didn’t want to hear. It was a good thing he told Lev.

“Ok,” he finally huffed, ready to finish this conversation, “Well, thanks, I guess.”  
He turned for the door.

“Do you want me to find out more, senpai?”

Kenma cut him with a sharp glance, “No! Don’t say anything!”

He had definitely thought about getting Lev to investigate for him, but after a couple minutes talking to him, remembering how god damn annoying he was, Kenma was not ready to trust him with any sort of responsibility. This info would have to be enough. Shoyo liked guys. He would just have to do his best with that.

For the rest of the day though, every time he saw Lev within two metres of Shoyo, his heart jumped. And when Lev saw Kenma and Shoyo together he would stare, and then quickly look away whenever Kenma caught him, and it was almost as bad as Kuroo last year. 

He tried to interrupt any conversation he saw the two young spikers having, worrying, sensibly so, that Lev would say something embarrassing if he let them talk. One time when he did this Shoyo even smiled at him and said, “Kenma-san, we were just talking about you,” and Kenma felt his stomach do a somersault.

Somehow, though, they made it to the end of the day without Lev revealing something. They made it to the end of the day and settled into their beds, and Shoyo watched Kenma play video games over his shoulder once they had their pyjamas on, like normal. 

They made it to the end of the day and nothing had changed. But that also meant Kenma had yet to confess. It meant he had to confess tomorrow, on the final day. It meant he still had no idea what Shoyo’s answer would be. It meant he still couldn’t kiss him.

* * *

Kenma woke up earlier than Shoyo on the last day. That was the first time it happened.

It was partly due to the fact that Shoyo had been zipping around the court and jumping metres in the air for a week straight, and partly due to the fact that Kenma was _freaking out_ about confessing.

He’d been woken, actually, by a nightmare. A nightmare where he confessed to Shoyo, and Shoyo accepted, and they started making out, but then he slid his hand under Kenma’s shirt and muttered, “Kageyama-kun" and suddenly Kenma was a third party, and he was watching Shoyo make out with Kageyama. 

It was terrifying, and it sent him shooting straight up in his bed.

When he woke up, the sky was that sort of warm gray when it’s still night, the sun hasn’t risen, but it’s not nearly as dark as midnight. Dawn or something? It was 4:22am, that’s what it was.

Kenma rolled around in his bed for almost an hour, trying to get back to sleep, but he kept thinking of the plan, of the drafted confession he had written with Kuroo, when he was vastly otherthinking what to say.

Kuroo had helped a lot with the plan, actually. He wished Kuroo were here.

It wasn’t much past 5:30 when Kenma pressed the dial button on his phone. He doubted Kuroo would be up, but he would be willing to risk waking him up. He was out on the classroom balcony, the cement cold on his bare feet, it hadn’t yet been warmed by the morning sun. 

He got voicemail, but he didn’t leave one, closing his phone and looking out at the early-morning sky. After a minute or two he opened his phone to try again.

“Mmm,” he finally got an answer after the third re-dial, “Kenma?”

“I can’t do it,” Maybe the first time he called he could have managed some small talk, but his few minutes out on the balcony had, for some reason, made him frantic, “I can’t do it Kuroo.”

He heard Kuroo groan a little, move around, yawn, and smack his lips together before he finally said something.

“What?”

It helped, a little, hearing Kuroo, the same as he always was. It was kind of nice how little he seemed to care, it made Kenma feel a little calmer. Like it really wasn't that big of a deal.

“I- I don’t know if I can, um, confess, to Shoyo, today.”

There was a pause, and then a laugh.

“Dumbass.”

“What?” Kenma hissed into the phone, “I’m being serious.”

“You’re gonna confess to him, Kenma. You’re gonna be fine.”

He said it so calmly, so sincerely, it suddenly felt hard to argue. It suddenly felt like maybe he would. 

He turned, his eyes scanning through the slots in the blinds and into the classroom, where Shoyo lay sleeping. He could confess to him, couldn’t he? He bit his lip. Could he?

“I don’t know Kuroo, I just…” He paused for a second, trying to find the words for his problem, “Shoyo is really popular…”

“I’m really popular.”

Kenma rolled his eyes, drawing them away from his sleeping crush, “No, Kuroo, you’re really not.”

“I- I’m not _unpopular_ ,” he whined.

“Even if I say that’s true,” Kenma mused, “How is that relevant?”

There was a beat.

“Well, I just, I know the mind of a popular person, is all,” Kuroo started to explain, the sleep finally starting to shed off his voice, “And I think, well, I think he’s gonna say yes, Kenma.”

Kenma twisted his lip, “You don’t know that.”

There was another silence, this one that Kenma knew, from past experience, was a frustrated one.

“Ok, fine, I don’t know that,” Kuroo finally crackled, he sounded fully awake now, maybe he’d even gotten out of bed, “But what I do know is that you made a plan, and what I do know is that it’s a damn good plan, because _you_ made it. What I know is that you made that plan for a reason and what I know is you’re going to follow it. You don’t have to trust me, Kenma, you don’t have to trust anyone. Trust yourself. Trust your plan.”

Kenma took a deep breath. He was glad he talked to Kuroo. He knew what to say. He knew how to make him feel better. Kenma _had_ made the plan for a reason. He _had_ been thinking of it since this time last year. It was a good plan, and he was going to follow it.

“Thanks Kuroo.”

Kuroo made a little whiny noise, “Next time wait until sunrise to call me about stupid stuff.”

Kenma scoffed, “The sun rose, like, fifteen minutes ago.”

Kuroo scoffed, mimicking Kenma’s, “It was a _hyperbole_.”

Kenma frowned, debating whether it would be worth it to tell Kuroo that was technically a litote, not a hyperbole.

“Bye," he muttered instead.

“Bye," Kuroo repeated.

It helped. To talk to Kuroo. It helped a lot. He was going to confess to Shoyo, and it was going to go well.

* * *

His confidence faded quickly, like a low rate stat-booster, consistently being drained until, by noon, his will to confess was near non-existent.

He was staring at Shoyo all day, to the point that people were probably noticing, but he couldn’t look away. 

If he confessed today that could be the end. Shoyo could reject him and he could lose one of his closest friendships. If he didn’t confess today, they could drift apart, over time. He would graduate this year, if they didn’t both go to nationals he might never see Shoyo again. 

If he confessed and Shoyo said yes? It made his heart flutter too much for him to think about. He knew he would get his hopes too high if he thought about it for too long, and the more he looked at Shoyo, at how kind, cheerful, perfect he was, the more it felt completely unrealistic that he would want to date Kenma.

Kenma watched Shoyo pack his entire bag before he even touched his, not wanting to admit the week was over. When they finished cleaning up the room Kenma’s stomach felt like it was in his throat.

“Ugh, I don’t want to go back,” Shoyo complained, standing right before the doorway, refusing to go through, “Can’t I just stay here forever. I’ll move into your house, Kenma, and we’ll just play volleyball, and video games, and hang out every day!”

Kenma stared down at the floor, face going slightly red. They were the only two left in the room, and he wasn’t in a hurry to leave either.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “You should do that.”

Shoyo laughed and wrapped Kenma in a tight hug, “Kenma!”

Kenma chuckled, and mumbled his response, “Shoyo.”

When Shoyo broke the hug, he twisted his smile into the closest he could get to an upset expression, “If only I didn’t have parents, and Natsu, I totally would.”

Kenma smiled, “It’s ok, your team needs you, too.”

A smile twitched up on Shoyo’s face, then he looked away, and he never looked away. Even when Kenma was aggressively _not_ making eye contact, Shoyo never looked away.

“Um, Kenma,” he started, quietly, which was not a word normally used for Shoyo, “Can I, um, talk to you about something, before I go.”

Kenma’s heart had found a steady rhythm, it just happened to be about twice and fast and five times as loud as it’s normal rhythm. That was what he was supposed to say.

Eyes wide, Kenma forced his head to nod. He was freaking the _fuck_ out.

“Um, well, I really wasn’t going to say anything,” Kenma couldn’t decide if Shoyo’s tone was a good sign, or a bad one, the words were ambiguous too, “But, the thing is, um, Lev talked to me yesterday.”

Kenma felt embarrassment and rage burn in his stomach. He was mostly focussing on the rage. He really should not have trusted Lev.

“Well, he kept, I guess, asking me questions,” Shoyo looked up at Kenma’s face, and Kenma made an effort not to let his anger show on his face, “About you.”

Kenma’s heart was racing and his stomach was flipping and his head was running through possible paths of this conversation like he was planning a volleyball play. Fear slowly mixed itself in with the anger and the embarrassment. 

What if Shoyo rejected him and he didn’t even confess? He hadn’t even considered that possibility before.

Shoyo looked nervous, and Kenma was pretty sure his expression wasn’t helping, but he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to fake a neutral face.

“Well, I tried to tell him there was nothing going on,” that hit Kenma like a knife to the heart, “I tried to tell him I didn’t like you, you know, in that way,” ah, a second knife, how nice, “but I, I don’t think he believed me.”

The rage and fear, even the embarrassment had washed out of Kenma in place of nothing but deep despair. He knew the feeling now, of having your heart ripped out of your chest. He would be able to understand those sappy dramas Kuroo made him watch sometimes. He could understand heartbreak.

“I-” apparently Shoyo wasn’t done, but Kenma could only half listen, “I think he knows.”

It took Kenma half a second to register the phrase, rebooting his brain from its depression. _He knows?_ “Believe” was subjective, “know” implied there was something to be known. Something that was true. As if, maybe, Shoyo liking him was something someone could _know_. As if it was a fact.

“And, I just, I guess I was scared he would tell you,” Shoyo continued, as Kenma’s heart rate returned to his pace from earlier, “He said he wouldn’t but, he was being… weird. I guess I just- I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

Again Shoyo’s eyes fixed on Kenma, and this time Kenma held eye contact.

“I-” Shoyo took a deep breath, “I like you, Kenma.”

Kenma didn’t have to consult the plan to know what to do now. He didn’t have to hesitate. Shoyo liked him back, so he kissed him.

He kissed him for all the times he wished he could. He kissed him for all the little smiles, little laughs. He kissed him for the way he’d just forced his heart into the equivalent of a 5k run. He kissed him for the way he found new ways to be perfect every day.

A part of Kenma felt like it made sense that Shoyo confessed. He had a way of filling in the gaps, of being everything Kenma couldn’t. It made sense he did the same thing now, when Kenma was about to give up on the whole plan, Shoyo found a way to finish it for him.

**Author's Note:**

> This was fun to write lol.  
> Might do a short fic of Kenma and Kuroo drafting the confession, too.
> 
> But yeah, kenhina <3<3<3<3


End file.
